ForwARd Arkansas Wants P-16 Education Plan

Dr. Sherece West-Scantlebury, executive director of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and a steering member of ForwARd Arkansas, says the newly formed education reform group wants to shape a pre-K through college (P-16) education strategy for the state.

“Our charge is to develop a comprehensive P-16 plan for education for the state of Arkansas,” West-Scantlebury said in an interview with KATV’s Scott Inman on this week’s edition of Talk Business & Politics.

ForwARd Arkansas released a preliminary report on the state of Arkansas education. The report includes the group’s research on school performance, student demographics, test scores, graduation rates and other education metrics.

Arkansas ranks high in pre-K and college access, but poorly in college completion.

“What the study really shows is that we’re not preparing our students for careers,” she said. “Our students are not prepared, that’s the main finding… our education system has to do far more than its doing currently to ensure that all of our students are prepared for college and careers.”

ForwARd Arkansas was established as a strategic partnership of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, Walton Family Foundation and Arkansas Board of Education and formally announced its formation earlier this month. It aims to push for more research-based state policy for pre-K through college education with a focus on schools in academic distress.

West-Scantlebury steered away from directly discussing last week’s state takeover of the Little Rock School District, but she did say, “we will have specific recommendations for academically distressed schools throughout the state.”

Watch her interview below.